This is an old revision of the document!
Network Operator Guidelines
Written by Rubin
Friday, 16 April 2004
A note to our users: These rules act as a guide for your administration to act justly and fairly when dealing with security and disciplinary activities online. This is NOT our terms of service, or our acceptable use policy.
These are basic guidelines for Opers on the AfterNET IRC network. These rules are “the law” for immediate oper action, but can be overridden by the network at a high level (i.e., a vote by opers). In general, if you are not sure if its OK to act, play it safe. Always try to solve problems FIRST without use of your oper.
In most cases, where a real person is involved (not a bot, clone or trojan) you should try to talk to them first. Oper commands should be used as a last resort. Educate channel owners on how to set good bans, and use the tools they have first. G-Lines should be used only when there is no good alternative solution. Spammers may be killed without warning as long as they are really spammers (see below).
Valid reasons to take kill/gline action against a user
Spam: Unsolicited MASS advertising. Pasting a
URL is _NOT_ spam if its an honest part of conversation. Channel ops ARE allowed to say EG in their /topic that they have moved to another network and how to get there.
Ban/ignore evasion:
IRC is designed so that users can solve their own problems. However, opers may take action in cases where extra-persistent people change hosts, use proxies, etc to avoid ignores or channel bans.
Serious threats: Users who very strongly threaten others with cracking or DOS. This is for stuff that is an eminent threat to the users such as actively using client exploits, or threatning to DDOS servers when you have some reason to believe the threat is credible. Most cases of threats should be dealt with using ignores and bans. This is only to be used as a last resort! Note: using a perticular nickname alone is not a threat to anyone (unless they are engaging in other activities to try to convince people they are an oper and get info out of them or such.)
You will note that racism, warez, and porn are not on this list. We are not the morality police, nor are we cops. AfterNET is an uncensored place. Don't like what someone says? You can add your own opinion, and/or ignore them, but you cannot take away their right to say it.
Channel power issues
How to verify a channel owner in X3: /MSG X3 #channel CHANSTATS (be sure to oper up first) send an email to the address listed, containing a secret word, number, or phrase, along with a short message explaining the situation in case you're being swindled. If the person requesting help can tell you the secret, you know they are the true owner.
Or “/MSG X3 #channel ACCESS nick” tells you if they are logged in.
Channels may have a maximum of one owner. The rest are co-owners. This way we don't play games with who gets the channel after a fight/breakup. If the real owner has not been seen for 60+ days, the owner may be removed and a coowner promoted to owner at your discretion. (Try to get them to a consensus, and think of whats best for the channel, and network).
Other oper guidelines
Missing servers should be reconnected automatically by X2, which will try once an hour if they don't return immediately. Regardless, opers should try to connect them as well. The X2 command “REROUTE C” will do this automatically to the proper hub. /connect server* 8888 hub* if x2 is missing.
Mass user notices such as /wallusers, .GLOBAL, and /msg $*.* should be used only for official business. The appropriate method should be used to target users according to who needs to see the information (.Global is for cservice messages only, /wallusers is for “optional” info to users, and $*.* for getting a message to every user).
Test link servers
Admin Guidelines
Every oper must have a 'sponsor'– an admin who is 'their' admin. This admin's server is referred to as their 'home' server. If the server goes away, or the admin decides to un-sponsor an oper, all other admins have the option of picking up the opers sponsorship. If none do, the oper is removed.